Cassettes, what are your stories?

[desysko]

Who here still own cassettes and listen to them regularly? I had some when I was younger but obviously as technology got better and as my dad got computers and the alike, I stopped using cassettes. I recently reacquired two cassette decks (one which needs some replacing but otherwise good condition). I also found some sealed and packaged blank tapes from back then. I've been recording some albums on them, curious to see how they sound. Whoever said that cassettes are terrible has obviously never had good ones. While obviously FLAC is hard to beat, these cassettes sound pretty good and I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the two unless I had them side by side. I've watched some videos, and one thing it has made me learn is to appreciate the amount of work that was done with these older media formats. I'm now doing some research on the best way to setup a hifi sound system for my room.

 

What are your stories about cassettes? Were you ever in them? Do you miss them? Did you ever like them? Really interested to read stuff from the older guys.

[the goa constrictor]

I love cassettes. I have a box full of them in my studio. I archived nearly all of my radio shows to cassette when I was doing that. What I really love about the cassette mix is that you put it in and it sometimes starts in the middle. There is no fast forwarding, no skipping. Just slams you into an energy and off you go!

 

They're fairly durable and fit into your pocket, unlike a CD which is much larger and cumbersome.

 

Cassettes are great! I miss them =)

[Blubber]

i still own every cassette i ever had, great nostalgia inside. only class-a material went on my compilations i listened to in my cars. famous got my wu-tang-rza-series spanning over 8 tapes

[draeke]

Cassettes are an interesting media indeed and there is something nice about them.

However, some did not stand the test of time and indeed now sound terrible, it happened to me.

Especially the 90 minutes one, some seem to sound "slower" and tracks are thus longer than they should be.

There is also some frequency cut of course and u can't have the full spectrum as on cd/vinyl but they still are fairly decent.

I used to tape a radio transmission in the 90s that played some trance, techno and goa from vinyls, i should rip those and see if some is good

[Veracohr]

I used to have commercial cassettes, I taped radio on cassettes, and my first multi-track recordings were on a cassette-based recorder.

 

I don't miss them the least or have any nostalgia. Good riddance to bad rubbish!

[abasio]

But when the battery started running out you got a cool downbeat version of whatever you were listening to. Who could miss that?

[desysko]

It's been pretty interesting for me for the past couple weeks. Bought a used deck, check it out, and surprisingly in good condition. Just need to change the belt and probably add some oil/lube to some parts. Now I've been looking into speakers on my local craigslist. I've been listening to music and doing stuff mainly through my headphones since middle school. It would be nice to be able to have speakers agian.

[Veracohr]

But why? Why I ask you, WHY???

 

Shitty dynamics, shitty frequency response, wow and flutter...what on earth is there to recommend it?

[abasio]

That feeling of Nostalgia

He will also need to keep a non-smooth pen or pencil handy.

[Starkraver]

That pencil cassette tape memory

[Sunmoon Records]

many many many

 

im still selling them.

[Goa-Head]

If you are almost 40 like me, cassettes are obviously nostalgia. First songs taped off radio, not downloaded from torrents etc Still I have lots of tracks I taped I want to identify, just haven't moved my lazy ass to do that.